Page 64 of Teacakes & Tangos
He drew in a long breath and blew it out.
‘My brother,’ he said at last.
‘You have abrother?’ I looked at him suspiciously. ‘You never told me.’
‘I know. I’m sorry.’
I gazed at him, helpless to know what to think. He was behaving so strangely.
Had he lied by omission about having a brother as well? Just as he’d failed to tell me Minnie was his grandmother?
What else hadn’t he told me?
‘I didn’t mention him to you because I never talk about him to anyone,’ he said flatly.
My mind was whirling.
And then suddenly I remembered the photograph. Not the one in the newspaper, but the one I’d seen that Minnie always carried with her.
I’d spotted the photo in her purse the day she came to see me – when she got out her bank card to offer me a loan.
It was a photo of two small boys. Her grandsons.
Two identical faces.
‘You have a twin,’ I murmured, as things started to slot into place.
‘Freddie. Yes,’ he replied softly.
‘So it wasn’t you I saw in the woods,’ I said slowly. ‘It was your brother, Freddie.’
He nodded.
‘And it’s Freddie the police are looking for?’
‘In connection with the robbery, yes.’
We looked at each other and I saw uncertainty in Xander’s eyes.
I could tell he was waiting for my reaction, probably not knowing if finally having the answers I needed would make me feel relieved and glad to see him, or whether I’d be angry because he’d been keeping so much from me the whole time...
‘Do you want to come in?’ I asked at last.
He nodded and I held the door wide and he walked over the threshold.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
‘Sit down.’
He nodded and pulled out a kitchen chair, perching on the edge of it and studying me rather awkwardly. I gave him a stiff little smile and turned to fill the kettle. The last thing I felt like doing was drinking more tea but at least it gave me time to compose myself.
Tea made, I placed the mugs down and we sat opposite each other, a dense silence hanging between us. I stared at a scratch on the table-top, not able to look at him. I had questions I needed to ask him, but for the moment, my mind was whirring too chaotically to make sense of it all.
It felt so weird to be sitting opposite Xander, being forced to face up to the fact that he had a brother he’d never told me about – and that this brother, Freddie, was a criminal who’d threatened the jewellery shop staff with a knife in order to make off with thousands of pounds worth of gems.
The edgiest thingI’dever done was smuggle a towel home from a hotel – and I’d felt guilty enough about that!
This whole robbery with violence thing was so far out of my comfort zone, I gave an involuntary shiver just thinking about it.
